A Smile That Explodes
by ayallaly
Summary: My prose rendition of the Bad Wolf Bay scene of Journey's End and the Doctor saying goodbye to Donna. A prequel to "Here I Lie On My Own in a Separate Sky".
1. Bad Wolf Bay

[[I split "Here I Lie" into two more manageable stories and made these two chapters a prequel of sorts. Hope this doesn't confuse anyone. Playlist: Where I Stood by Missy Higgins, Only You by Matthew Perryman Jones, Jezebel by Iron and Wine, Gravity by Coldplay, and How by Regina Spektor]]

_You're all I've ever wanted  
You're all I've ever known  
Can I be happy living with your ghost?_

From the moment that Donna told him Rose was coming back, he knew it was too good to be true. The universe is funny that way and if anyone knew the universe, it was him. He'd known he had to send her away from the moment the Meta-crisis was "born" but they'd been so caught up in saving the world and things had been like old times…he had been enjoying having her there too much to dwell on what was ahead. But now was the time, now that he had taken everyone back where they belonged, it was her turn. Jackie, Rose, and TenTwo (he had created this nickname in his mind earlier that day as a private joke) stepped out of the TARDIS onto Bad Wolf Bay, Jackie blathering on as she always did. The Doctor watched them all step onto the sandy shore and paused for a moment with his hand on the door. This would take all the strength he had so forgive him if human tendencies had started to rub off on him and he needed a second to gather it. He felt a warm pressure on his arm and turned back to see Donna clutching it in support, understanding the situation perfectly with her new Time Lord consciousness. With her free hand, she grabs the handle and the familiar scenery of that Norwegian beach revealed itself.

Her feet step off the wooden threshold of the TARDIS onto damp, ungiving sand. She glances around quickly in a panic, recognizing it all too well. She ignored her mother's teasing of the Meta-Crisis Doctor as she tried to pull herself together. "But this is the parallel world-" she protested. As soon as she said it, Jackie's words registered in her mind and a tiny rush of relief, hardly enough to rustle the tentacles of an Ood really, came over her. Of course they were in the parallel world: her mum needed to be taken back here to be with Dad and the baby. But as the Doctor joined them on the beach, he was too aloof, too far from her, too much weight in his stance, too much resignation in his eyes and with that she knew. After all she'd done to get back to him, he was leaving her here.

In the darker parts of his mind, those that this tenth regeneration seemed so keen to without her presence to coax it back out into the sun, he resented her for that day. He'd tried to be cold and calculated when he told her to leave him. He focused so intently on what he was doing, didn't look at her once, let Jackie implore her. He went so far as to send her here himself by roping the unit around her neck, too cowardly to face her. But she saw right through him as she always did and there wasn't one ounce of composure left within him when he saw that blur of blue, yellow, and pink reappear. First it was with anger that he clutched her. "I made my choice a long time ago and I'm never gonna leave you," she claimed. He tried to hold up his façade of irritation but he felt himself crumbling. _"I'm never gonna leave you." _How those words haunted him daily since they'd been here last. Why'd she have to come back? He could've lived with the fact that she had chosen Jackie and Pete over him. They were her family; of course she should have chosen them. But she didn't. She chose him. He had to lose her knowing he was the dearest thing to her. Why couldn't she have held on for ten more seconds? Ten more seconds and she'd never have had to leave. They'd have been together all this time. There would be no TenTwo and he wouldn't have to be leaving her now. But those ten seconds wouldn't have fixed her human life span and his Time Lord one and they wouldn't have allowed them to grow old together or live a normal life. Those were things the Doctor could never give her. But _he _could.

"Remind you of someone?" She looks away as memories of the old Doctor, the one with the funny ears and the leather jacket, surface. The loneliness and bitterness he held within him. The way she seemed to unearth something inside of him. "He's me when we first met." Her eyes, bloodshot from giving into the tears, turn back to settle on his. She'd asked him if he could change back, frightened of the stranger in front of her, but now she'd take it back. She'd never trade this slender man with the toothy grin and the ridiculously good hair for anything. He was _her_ Doctor. "And you made me better. And you can do the same for him." "But he's not you," she protested. How could anyone else in the world, even a semi-clone, hold a feather to him? All the complexities, contradictions, compassion that she had witnessed as they flourished and grew…how could anyone else be comparable?

"He needs you; That's very me." He can feel himself starting to break. Just little cracks, like the ones that form in ceramic that are too small to even see with the naked human eye but when you fill it with water, little droplets escape. A little droplet of emotion is starting to form when Donna steps forward and starts to speak. He's grateful to have her there with all her new cleverness, as though she can read his mind, but he knows even that can't last.

Finally she looks back at the man wearing the Doctor's face. It's almost laughable how identical they look. The soft bags under his eyes from the nightmares she used to hold his hand through as he cried out for all the victims of the Time War. The tousled locks she ran her fingers through as the two of them spent an evening playing with products from all over the galaxy to see which suited this new coif perfectly-he'd been so giddy, like a child with a new toy, after having that pathetic tuft his ninth regeneration called hair for so long. The slight dimples in his cheeks that only appeared when he truly smiled from ear to ear, like he had when he'd turned around on that pavement to run towards her, before he'd been shot and this whole mess of regeneration energy began. Even that affectionate twinge in his eyes when he spoke to her, so miniscule yet so prominent, she was certain she was the only one who noticed it.

"I've only got one life, Rose Tyler." He loved the way her name rolled off his tongue—always had. Well not him, he supposed, but the other him. If he wasn't so clever, his thoughts would confuse himself. It slipped through his lips, tasted so sweet, as though it had been created specifically for his mouth to spoken in this semi-playful way. He watched her eyes grow wide in understanding before he said it aloud. "I could spend it with you…if you want." He acted coy as though it were obvious, but in fact, he didn't know if she did want. Any minute, she could turn around and run back to the other man who now stood with eyes half closed and directed at his Chuck Taylors, hands stuffed in trouser pockets—one clenched in a fist and the other fingering a small piece of royal purple cloth he carried with him.

At first, he placed it with the rest of her things. Folded it gently and tucked it into a drawer. There were pieces of clothing strewn across the still-made bed: bell-bottom jeans he remembered her trying on for when they attempted to visit 1979, the magenta zip-up from when they nearly got sucked into a black hole, a multi-coloured scarf from an intergalactic bazaar they'd been to last month. He left them there to keep up the illusion that she had simply stepped out but when Martha came along, he scooped it all up and put it in a box, hidden away to be forgotten. Eventually, he had given up the notion that Rose would come back to reclaim her things and her place aboard the TARDIS and Donna, sympathetic as always, donated the box to a group of young girls in a struggling human colony in the 51st century, but not before he had carefully unfolded those cardboard flaps and pulled the violet garment out from on top. He wasn't sure if it was because it was the first moment he truly began to accept Rose's loss as Donna found it lying casually in the control room, or because he remembered the last time she wore it so clearly.

_She steps out of the closet, her hands tugging at the end of her shirt. "What about this? I haven't worn this in ages." She had been going through her things, deciding what to pack up to take back to Powell Estate so she could grab a fresh bundle of clothes. "Oooh yes, what a very purpley purple." She gives a quick twirl and a disheartened expression. "What? You don't like it?" "Oh, I like it fine, but you're wrong, it'll be ages still until you wear it last," he remarks as he reaches out for her hand which she readily takes with a grin. She sits beside him on the disheveled bed as the memory arrives. "Oh, right. 5 billion and 23. New new Earth, New new Doctor." She leans back on the mattress as they did on that field of apple grass. "Weeelll, not so new anymore. In fact I think I'm getting quite tired of this face; it might be time for a tune-up." She frowns playfully and grazes her hand on his freckled cheek. "Oh no, I'm just getting to like this one." A foreign and coquettish look takes over his face. "I'm not too 'foxy' for you?" Rose laughs as she remembers how Cassandra awkwardly waltzed around in the Doctor's body. "Just the right amount of foxiness, I think." The giggling subsides as they lock eyes and another moment enters both their minds, as though on the same wavelength. Cassandra in Rose's body, fervently running her hands through his hair, assailing his lips as though they were life-support. "You know, there was a bit of me still in there," Rose remarks, breaking the silence but not the gaze. "Really? How much is a bit? That's a very nontechnical term. For example, Silurians would conceive 'a bit' as about 7%, but the Qetesh are a much greedier species and would say it was more like 35%. Humans, however—" She cut him off with a kiss, more than just a bit herself and passionate in a much different sense than the one they'd experienced in New New New New (etc…) York. It was desperate, but not too, tender, but not weak, and familiar, in the way that home is. It was almost as though they somehow knew this would be their last peaceful moment._

He had taken that purpley purple shirt and cut a small strip, just long enough to wrap between his fingers when he was out saving the world and needed a moment of repose within that traffic-ridden brain of his to remember that even though he'd so much rather have her there with him, she still existed out there in the whole of creation and that was enough to keep him fighting. Now, as he watched, or rather stopped watching, Rose stare into the eyes of TenTwo, searching for the pieces of _him_ within him, his hand slipped into his pocket and found that little piece of cloth and to distract himself from the fact that he was losing her to himself, wondered if she would be upset that he had ruined her forgotten article.

"You'll grow old, same time as me?" Now she understood. Human Doctor. Doctor that would get sick with the flu and sleep in on weekends. Doctor that would get grey hairs and takes vitamins. "Together." She reached out and placed a hand on his torso, unprepared for the normalcy she was met with. A single heartbeat. Anyone else would think nothing of it, but to her it was more startling than the pair she was used to. All those times she'd laid her head on his chest, to be comforted by the duet resounding within him. But one heart meant no regenerations; never would he turn into a stranger whose quirks she'd have to rediscover. He'd always be the man he was now.

He couldn't help but smile a bit as he watched her recognize he was giving her a gift, not leaving her behind. How different this was from the last time he was here. Not that he was actually here, just a projection he had used a supernova in the Bernoxan galaxy to fuel, but it was real enough at the time. The way she'd reached up wanting to touch him, the way he tried to stall her imminent tears, the moment she'd told him she loved him and the way his voice broke as he replied "Quite right, too", and worst of all, when that sun he was burning up to say goodbye went out before he could utter his last three words, the way his lips had already formed the "I" when instead of tasting the word "love" in his mouth, there was only the saltiness of tears. He tried to laugh at himself sometimes to keep his hearts from breaking: The Doctor, feared throughout the universe, his name enough to cause some to run away was, in the end, a coward. He had fought off Daleks, an army of Cybermen, and the Devil himself, but when it came to telling a young human girl how he felt about her, he was scared senseless. But this time was different. She would be happy this time.

The TARDIS's familiar _whrrrr_ caused them all to look back and bring them to the reality of the inevitable goodbyes. "The reality's sealing itself off…forever." The way he said "forever" was so final, so absolute. She'd nearly forgotten that he was still there—the real Doctor. Another tear shed as he turned around to leave her. "But it's still not right…cause you're still you." He'd still be leaving her. Even playing house with the pseudo-Doctor, she'd still know he was out there. Her alien love in the bright blue box, living adventures without her. Those lips she had kissed, that hand she had held—they were still _his_. It was unfathomable to Rose Tyler that he was about to give her up to someone else, even if it was a clone. "And I'm him." His voice was monotonous and unfeeling, which gave her the cue. The Doctor wasn't one to hide his emotions, as much as he reveled in them, except when he thought his callousness served a better purpose. He was trying to let her go, to set her free, but she wouldn't go without a fight. "All right then, both of you, answer me this: when I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life…what was the last thing you said to me?" The question was directed at them both, but her eyes were only on him. "Go on, say it." If she could get him to say it out loud, just once, maybe he'd realize he couldn't bear to part with her and let her follow him back onto the TARDIS, leave the clone here with Jackie and Pete to become Uncle John to little baby Tony, and the three of them—The Doctor, Donna, and Rose Tyler—would carry on travelling the stars.

"I said, Rose Tyler." He knew what she was doing. At the cost of a warm and cordial hug goodbye, she was trying to break him. Those little droplets started forming at his cracks again, but this time he didn't need Donna's help to dam them up. "Yeah, and how was that sentence gonna end?" There was yearning interwoven through the soft blue threads of her irises. She'd always known he loved her, he was certain of it. She was clever enough to have sorted it out. But there was that characteristically human quality still left within her: the desire for confirmation of self-worth. He'd never told her, though he had no problem allowing her to be aware of his feelings, but the twenty-four year old girl within her wanted more, though she'd never asked for it. Until now. But he couldn't. Not because he was a coward this time, but because he knew the price of this admission. If he uttered those words they both wanted to hear, she'd never let him go. She'd never be happy here with TenTwo. She'd have nothing to hold against him. She'd spend the rest of her days trying to find another way back and worlds would collapse as consequence. "Does it need saying?"

She stared at him with disbelief. Of course it did. But it was too late. He'd already resigned himself to a life without her, already given into his fear of loving her, already accepted his curse long before this day. If there was one quality the Doctor had that she truly found irritating, it was his self-sacrificing nature—his higher sense of morality. It was why he never came looking for her after they'd been split initially. He could never justify tearing holes in the universe to be with her, even if the result was his misery. It was why he refused to give her what she asked for now. He could never justify selfishly snatching her up right now and taking her away in the TARDIS no matter how much they both wanted it, if he thought he could do something better for the world…for her. He was trying to set her free and for a moment, she hated him for it.

When her gaze turned upon him, he was nearly paralyzed. He was the Doctor; he knew what his Time Lord self was doing and he felt a soothing elation at the knowledge of what he was about to do but the intensity of her stare, her crest-fallen expression made it difficult to move. He knew she'd wanted to hear it from _him _but he'd hoped it wouldn't feel so much like she was settling. But it was no matter, because he could finally give her what she wanted in more ways than one, what they'd both wanted. He reached out to graze her forearm as he had done so many times before and lowered his lips to her ear. "I love you." The relief at saying it was almost silly but it was as though he were watching the Earth form again, but this time he and Rose Tyler were that first big rock and all the rest of the world just fell into place around them. He paused for a moment before leaning back to face her, preparing himself to be underwhelmed by a countenance of disappointment but as he met her eyes, there was something else within them entirely.

She half expected him to say the same thing, just to prove their likemindedness. She was surprised by the tender placement of his hand on her arm and as he leaned down to whisper those fateful words in her hungry ear, she realized that this man wasn't the Doctor, not really. He was something better. He was the Doctor freed of the aptly named "Curse of the Time Lords". Free of his fear of watching her wither. This Doctor didn't have to be frightened of his love, but could wear it on the sleeve of his tailored pinstripe suits. All this registered within her as she grabbed his lapels and pulled his lips to hers.

He observed the scene in silence, despite the inner turmoil of his finally defeating his most terrifying foe. A few seconds were all he could bear as he turns away, shaking off the sense that he was watching some sort of out-of-body experience. He wasn't sure whether it was the resurfacing of similar memories or the connection between the two Doctors, but he could almost feel the kiss and decided to take this momentary distraction as his cue to leave. He had done what he set out to do, and as trying as it had been on his weary Time Lord hearts, he knew better than any that tomorrow would come and life would go on just as it had before. As his hand brushed the TARDIS door, he was taken aback—it was damp, as though she had been crying for him. He took a small comfort in the fact that at the end of this long and tiresome day, he would still have what he always had: the TARDIS and the promise of the universe. Donna sauntered in behind him, closing the door softly and giving him a compassionate half-smile.

The TARDIS _whrrrred_ again, but this time the sound was different. She tore herself away from her new Doctor and looked over to find an empty beach and the little blue box growing in transparancy. She stared with incredulity that he had elected not to say a proper goodbye, but _did it need saying?_ And then it he was gone. Familiar fingers slipped in between hers and she turned her gaze over to her new Doctor giving her a look of understanding. Suddenly his sympathetic peer turned into a coy, tight-lipped smirk. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as his free hand slipped into his trouser pocket and pulled out an alien looking piece of wood. "What is that?" she asked as she wiped away the last of her tears. His smirk grew into a grin as he waved the foreign thing in front of her face. "You didn't think he'd leave us here to sit around and be boring, did you? This here is a piece of TARDIS coral. With a bit of jiggery pokery, I'd say we could get a fully grown TARDIS in about, ah…five years." Her expression of bewilderment quickly faded to one of pure delight. The Doctor had spoiled her after taking her to watch the Earth burn. No oranges were as orange as those curling tendrils of flame, no sky was as vast as that big empty nothingness surrounding the boiling rock. Nothing was spectacular here after seeing that fiery symphony. He had ruined normal life for her. But it didn't have to be that way anymore. "The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS. Just as it should be."


	2. Doctor Donna Friends

[[This chapter is a bit shorter but I wanted to do a followup on the Doctor before I got into TenToo/Rose territory. Considering he lost the love of his life and then his dearest friend right after, I thought he deserved a voice before I moved onto lighter stuff. These songs are perfect for background noise as you read: The Ballad of Fuck All by Malcolm Middleton, A Place Called Home by Kim Richey, Sorrow by The National, A Smile That Explodes by Joseph Arthur, and Save Me by The Pierces. Enjoy!]]

_Sorrow's my body on the waves  
Sorrow's a girl inside my cave  
I live in a city sorrow built  
It's in my honey, it's in my milk_

There was no reprieve for him. Leaving Rose and TenTwo there granted him no relief for he was still staring his fate in the face. Donna was going on about the planet Felspoon and its swaying mountains. He nodded solemnly as she twisted and turned knobs that only yesterday she wouldn't have dared touch lest they fall out of the sky.

"And how do you know that?"

"Because it's in your head. And if it's in your head, it's in mine." Poor, clever DoctorDonna hadn't figured it out quite yet.

"And how does that feel?" He knew what her answer would be. She hadn't been him long enough for all that knowledge to be a burden. He envied her, really. To be naïve again and take pure joy in all the wonders of the universe—without its sorrows and consequences.

"Binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary. I'm fine!" There it was. "Fiction, friction, fixing, mixing, rickston, Brixton." She gasps and clutches her head. He reaches into his pocket for the purple piece of cloth and wonders what of Donna's he will carry around when she's gone.

"There's never been a Time Lord Human Meta-Crisis before now…and you know why." Now she gets it. All the delight had drained from her eyes and dread filled them instead.

"Because there can't be….I want to stay."

"Look at me." For a moment, he hopes she doesn't. He almost thinks he can't bear to see her face so desolate. "Donna, look at me." And then she does and he swears he's going to burst into regeneration energy right then and there because how can two hearts break so many times in such a short period and still beat on?

"I was going to be with you forever….Rest of my life, travelling in the TARDIS. The DoctorDonna." Her melancholy takes a quick turn into absolute terror. "Oh, but I can't. I can't go back. Don't make me go back." He grabs her shoulders, trying to steady her shaking. He has to do it now. He can't watch her grieve any longer.

"Oh, Donna Noble, I am so sorry. But we had the best of times. The best." He can see in her eyes, they go through the same memories as though they're watching a "Best Hits" reel together. When she saved him from himself after he lost Rose the first time, her compassion for the Ood, how she held his hand at Pompeii, meeting Agatha Christie, saving the whole universe... She begs and as frightened of her wrath as he would usually be, he refuses to watch her burn here in front of him. "Goodbye." She falls unconscious and he catches her in an unrequited embrace. The TARDIS falls silent as she mourns Donna Noble.

* * *

There she was, gossiping in her kitchen, doing that horrible laugh of hers, not missing a beat. His hands were in his trouser pockets, fumbling with something new. He'd found her old engagement ring, the one from the wedding she never had when they first met, all that time ago. She'd set it on her dresser, in a bout of arrogance he thought perhaps as a reminder of him and her promise that she'd be magnificent. And magnificent, she had been. He'd taken it from the dusty wooden surface while she was sleeping, using the excuse that her memory could come back at the sight of it, and placed it in his palm. With his free hand, he grabbed the violet cotton strip from his pocket and knotted it delicately around the golden band. As he watched her shut the refrigerator door, he clutched it in his fist.

"Donna," He called her name casually as he'd done so many times before, but there was no recognition in her eyes as she turned to face him. "I was just going."

"Yeah, see ya," she muttered in an unfeeling tone, as she would to a stranger, which is what he was to her now. He wasn't sure what he expected—he'd said his goodbye on the TARDIS, when she was still DoctorDonna, when she still knew him. But this was worse. He'd wished he hadn't bothered and never had to see her look at him with that blank stare. She turned away from him as quickly as she had spun around and carried on with her conversation about how mad it was to think that the planet had moved through the sky. He paused for a moment on his way out, soaking it all in. He was a bit pleased that she seemed to slip back into her life so easily, that she wouldn't have to live feeling unfulfilled or missing the stars. He wondered if she would keep her promise to make something of herself and hoped that some small part of her subconscious wouldn't allow all their experiences to go to waste in a temp agency.

* * *

He felt like that man in Temple of Doom—Rose had a hidden fancy for Indian Jones movies, claiming he was an adventurous detective just like the Doctor, though not nearly as good looking, and she had sat him down to watch it one evening after she had gotten over her initial shock of his living 900 years and never seen them before. He retorted that his job as a time traveller was to point and laugh at archaeologists. They sat curled up on the couch and he had spent most of the movie explaining how Kali was actually the leader of the Jullatii who were in the start of a war with the Osirans who were working in Egypt at the time and tried to manipulate the Indus Valley people to fight as footsoldiers and that black goo drink is actually alien technology that "makes your mind all loosy goosy so the Jullatii could jump right in and bend it all around" and at that point Rose turned the movie off and called him ridiculous and kissed his forehead softly as she invited him to carry on with his story without the distraction of the telly on behind them. Anyhow, he felt like that man in the beginning of the movie who is incarcerated in that dreadful contraption. The one who watches helplessly as the villain reaches into his chest cavity and pulls out his throbbing heart but is somehow left breathing. But because he was a Time Lord and had two to spare, he had watched them both take their leave of his body and yet was still standing here living on.

The glowing core of the TARDIS made the water droplets on his skin shine. It'd been raining. Atmospheric disturbance. Still, at least it hadn't been snowing. Despite the brilliance of those little frozen flakes, he'd resent them on this night. Perhaps tomorrow they'd inspire a toothy grin on his angular face but not tonight. This is what he'd been reduced to—resenting nonliving things. He'd made it snow that Christmas evening for Donna, hoping it'd convince her to come along with him. Atmospheric excitation. She'd been smart then to stay away, but they never could for long. And Rose…they'd stood hand in hand in that ashen "snow" on that first night. His first night as the New New Doctor, the first time he'd put on that pinstriped suit, the first time he'd seen that sparkle in her eye. The beginning of an era. Anyhow, he was glad it had been too warm yet for snow.

He'd never really appreciated just how large the TARDIS truly was, especially when she was empty. Her usual chaotic whrrring was only a steady hum, singing him a familiar lullaby. He slid his sopping blazer off his shoulders and laid it over the control panel. How full of life this room was just hours ago when she'd flown so steady with so many hands manning her. He knew the universe was cruel, but it seemed to have the worst sense of humour when it came to him. The two people he loved most taken from him begrudgingly in one evening, the rest gone on along with their lives, and here he was, alone in the TARDIS again. The whole of creation in front of him, ready to be taken, and all he truly wanted was an evening at the Powell Estate with Rose, Jackie too if he was being honest…or to turn back around to Chiswick and have tea with Donna and watch Wilfred's eyes grow as the pair of them recounted their stories of Messaline and the Ood-Sphere. But he couldn't go to these places. He sauntered over to set a time and date for his travel destination but came up blank. His finger found the button for "random" and prayed the TARDIS had the compassion to send him somewhere far from London with lots of distractions. His elbows rested on the railing as he stared out at the quiet cockpit. "Just you and me then, old girl."


End file.
